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Penguin Great Ideas : Why I Write [Paperback]

George Orwell
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Book Description

2 Sep 2004 014101900X 978-0141019000 Rev Ed

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.


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Penguin Great Ideas : Why I Write + Books v. Cigarettes (Penguin Great Ideas) + Man Alone with Himself (Penguin Great Ideas)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; Rev Ed edition (2 Sep 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 014101900X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141019000
  • Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 0.7 x 18.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 7,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Product Description

About the Author

GEORGE ORWELL (born Eric Arthur Blair) was born in India in 1903, but moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 entered Eton, where he began writing. He worked widely in journalism but fame came in 1945 with the publication of ANIMAL FARM.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Thankyou for writing what You wrote. 19 Oct 2010
By Vickie
Format:Paperback
I bought this collection of essays to widen my knowledge of Orwell's intent behind his novels, and what I found was an assortment of concise works which give a unique twang to several political arguments. The initial essay delved into the difference between Fascism and Socialism, of which Orwell fervently believes, should be made aware to everyone. The context of these essays, written mid world war two are still undeniably relevant to the modern reader, despite the fact the threat of Fascism is no longer a major concern. `On Hanging' is a reflection of Orwell's time in Burma, witnessing a man take his last steps- and it provokes the argument at why we end a life of someone who is functioning perfectly, who has the concern of stepping round puddles on the way to the noose. The final essay is a quirky little number, displaying the decline of the English Language. Orwell delves into how many political phrases are simply meaningless metaphors, how foreign anecdotes illustrate ambiguity, and how embellished statements cover up the true, direct meaning of language. Read this petite bright idea, it gives the reader such an insight to why the man wrote what he wrote.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Eileen Shaw TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
The very natural wish for revenge after the war is considered against the reality of how most people just felt relief that it was over. Orwell did not write about the reparations demanded from Germany and the effect of the partition of Berlin (or if he did it is not recorded here), which is something of a disappointment. He wrote about the "Atom Bomb" as it was called back then, and this essay is illuminating only on the notion of what are "good" weapons (those of the medieval age, that anyone could use) and "bad" weapons - tanks and the bomb which are expensive as well as conducive to control by cold war.

Orwell's writing about literature, when not in a political vein, is instructive. He loves the stories of Jack London and mourns their popularity, while admitting they are extremely variable in tone. The problem with these stories is their extreme cruelty - indeed London's Iron Heel predicts the rise of fascism. His greatest works have the theme of the cruelty of nature.

In his essay on The Prevention of Literature Orwell is most exercised by the distortion and suppression caused by Communists and `fellow-travellers'. "There can be no question," he says, "About the poisonous effect of the Russian mythos on English intellectual life. The kind of distortion he has in mind take in situations such as that which found "...very large numbers of Soviet Russians - mostly, no doubt, from non-political motives - had changed sides and were fighting for the Germans. Also a small but not negligible proportion of the Russian prisoners and Displaced Persons refused to go back to the USSR, and some of them were repatriated against their will. These facts, known to many journalists on the spot, went almost unmentioned in the British press, while at the same time Russophile publicists in England continued to justify the purges and deportations of 1936-38 by claiming that the USSR `had no quislings.' The fog of lies and misinformation that surrounds such subjects as the Ukraine famine, the Spanish Civil War, Russian policy in Poland and so forth, is not due entirely to conscious dishonesty, but any writer or journalist who is fully sympathetic to the USSR - sympathetic, that is, in the way the Russians would want him to be - does have to acquiesce in deliberate falsification on important issues."

Lighter pieces include Pleasure Spots which describes in scathing tones new ideas for holidays of the future. Interestingly these sound exactly like a Centre-Parks complex, even down to the continuous music in all covered areas. Oh please preserve us from musak!

One of Orwell's most famous journalistic pieces is called The Decline of the English Murder - and it is gruesome, though one does hear the satire not far beneath the surface. In one of his best pieces of work: Politics and the English Language, Orwell includes six rules for writing:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one would do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Strangely enough one of the best pieces of writing here is entitled: Some Thoughts on the Common Toad. On waking, Orwell notes, "the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice... that the toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet rings and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.

Later in this piece, which might be my favourite of all his writings, he asks: "Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes?... while we are all groaning, or at least, ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenom which does not cost money..." He also remarks, "'Nature' in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters." Mainly, it seems, because he has gone off the political track and is being "sentimental" about his surroundings.

There is much more to this collection, much of it important political writing, especially so with Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels, and Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool, as well as an excellent essay about Ghandi. Much of what Orwell has to say is very much involved with the politics of his own time, which are much more agonised than our own. This is because people, ordinary people, matter to Orwell. Political activity matters to him in a way it no longer does to us. I have no respect for the politicians of my day, but much respect for a man who tried always to tell the truth when all about him were liars, fools and fabricators.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A very English idealism 13 Mar 2008
By M. Harrison TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
You don't have to be a socialist to enjoy this little collection of Orwell essays. You just have to enjoy simple but bitingly precise use of the English language, and hold a forlorn affection for the English themselves. 'England is.. a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and the silly,' says Orwell. And then adds, 'But in any calculation about it one has got to take into account its emotional unity..'

It is Orwell's combination of a sentimental attachment to the ordinary Englishman who doesn't hesitate in the face of Fascism, and a withering dismissal of English anti-intellectualism, that makes this book so beguiling. It feels remarkably contemporary as he observes 'England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.' And touchingly prescient as he predicts in 1940 that 'in whatever shape England emerges from the war..the gentleness, hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies.'

Towards the end he gets a little bogged down in his manifesto for change - and his belief in nationalisation now seems quaint. But the book returns to form at the end with a coruscating attack on the misuse of English.

Poor a slightly warm beer, look out over some interlocking hills, and enjoy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Why I Write
The book is smaller than I imagined it would be. The content is excellent. This a book to keep and refer to, often.
Published 19 days ago by Mrs. Audrey Reimann
4.0 out of 5 stars George Orwell complex self-examination of his motives and politics
A very engaging book which captured the authors trademark economy with words married to a profound self-awareness. An excellent book
Published 3 months ago by David Lawrence O Driscoll
2.0 out of 5 stars From small acorns...
It's a lot of money for very few pages of teenage bunkum; the govt will decide what will be produced, middle-class will be abolished; fight the millionaires etc The tedium... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Sid Boggle
5.0 out of 5 stars Cracking collection of essays
I love George Orwell. He gives it to you straight. Here are a few quotes from this fine little collection of his essays, several of which I have read and enjoyed many times... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Simon Bendle
5.0 out of 5 stars With hindsight Orwell was ahead of all the rest.
Reading Orwell's essay today is a real eye opener. If you overlay the known outcomes and political scenarios onto the book Orwell was bang on the money. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mr I B Paul
5.0 out of 5 stars A quirky, quaint and wonderful little read
Though vastly outdated by modern standards, "Why I Write" is still somehow relevant politically. Not only is it still relevant, but provides a fascinating insight into the mindset... Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2010 by Eric Blair
5.0 out of 5 stars I am so Glad that Orwell Wrote
The four essays in this book were first published from 1931 - 1946. They are polemical in nature expressing George Orwell's views from left wing political perspective. Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2009 by Herman Norford
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